Beginner’s luck

Biddle in a speed turn. Official US Navy photo

30 May 1969 was Memorial Day. Began the day with my first midwatch (0000-0400). Got skunked — not a single “skunk” (surface contact) found on radar. Then, after a few hours sleep and breakfast, a surprise.

At 0930, the ship held man-overboard drills. A dummy was thrown off to either port or starboard and an officer with the conn, i.e., the only person on the bridge authorized to give speed and course orders to the helmsman, tried to bring the ship around and alongside the target, in a manner that allowed shipboard personnel to retrieve the dummy.

It was our fifth day at sea and, after the regular Officers of the Deck had taken their shot, Captain Olsen decided to let the new Ensigns (two in addition to me) give it a try. As a special duty officer, I was not authorized to be a ship-driver or to qualify as an Officer of the Deck Underway, so I expected just to watch. But noooooo . . . Captain Olsen, for whatever reason, ordered me to take the conn, too. 

This would be the first time I had had control of even a motorboat, let alone one with the motors this one had. Thank goodness I was maybe last to have the conn for the drills, so I had seen and heard several officers before me. I was very nervous. I figured I had been tossed the opportunity to become a funny story for the rest of the deployment. “You shoulda seen what our Intel Officer did in man-overboard. Oh my gawd!”

I remember with awe what happened when I heard “Man overboard, port side!” and gave the order “Left full rudder (to move the ship’s propeller away from the “man overboard”), all ahead flank (top speed).” The stern of the ship lowered, the bow came up, and this man-of-war, nearly two football fields long, just leapt ahead. It was so amazing to me that it took a few seconds to come back to the issue at hand. I had to run to the portside bridge wing and find the dummy using binoculars.

The ship kept turning to port, increasing in speed. The officer with the conn (me), at just the right point, had to slow the turn and the ship’s speed so that the ship would approach the dummy, coming to rest alongside it, if at all possible. During the turn, I would have said something like “Rudder amidships” (put the rudder on the centerline, no angle) or “Meet her” (check but not stop the ship’s swing by putting the rudder to the opposite side). Then “Steady as she goes,” then “All stop.” In what I described in my journal entry that day as “One of the best examples of beginner’s luck I’ve ever seen,” the ship nearly stopped next to the dummy and it was “rescued” easily. It was the best recovery of the day.

Don’t remember for sure, but I think just about everyone on the bridge was in stunned silence.

On this day, we were “somewhere between Jamaica and Panama,” according to my journal. (That’s about a 1,000 mile distance.) We had slowed to arrive at the Panama Canal at the appropriate time on the following day.